Hands off Libya! Jobs, not war!

Published Mar 17, 2011 10:42 PM

The imperialist states with the greatest economic stakes in North Africa and the Middle East – the U.S., Britain and France – have once again used the United Nations Security Council as a political cover to endorse their naked aggression against a developing country struggling to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

On March 17, these three pushed through a resolution giving them the supposed authority to openly wage war against Libya by bombing it, all under the guise of humanitarian concern for civilians.

Libya has been resisting an armed force, supported by these same imperialists, that has used conventional weapons of war, not prayers or pleas, to take over cities in this North African country’s most sensitive economic areas – where its oil is refined and shipped out. But this week the tide turned in this war, and in recent days the Libyan government has shown that it has the popular support and the strength to roll back this attempt to either partition the country or overthrow the government altogether and push Libya back to the days of neo-colonialism.

That is why the imperialists rushed to ram through a resolution that is as phony as the ones that “authorized” sanctions on Iraq and Yugoslavia, with devastating consequences for the people who were supposedly being rescued.

Make no mistake about it – this is not a struggle between an entrenched dictatorship that has served the interests of the imperialists and unarmed demonstrators– like the mass demonstrations in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and now even Saudi Arabia. But the imperialist media in particular has framed the Libyan issue as a struggle for democracy. The U.N. resolution itself is worded deceitfully, as a move intended to help civilians, without mentioning that this intervention is intended to resuscitate an armed rebellion that has been receiving outside assistance.

Troops from the reactionary kingdom of Saudi Arabia this week invaded Bahrain to shoot down demonstrators there. The Yemeni rulers are also firing on unarmed demonstrators. But the imperialists are not clamoring to intervene there on the side of the demonstrators; they aren’t even publicly rebuking these reactionary rulers.

The Security Council vote authorizing the imperialists to bomb Libya was 10 for, with five abstentions. Those who voted for – notably the U.S., Britain and France – represent the huge transnational banks and oil companies that have monopolized control of the Middle East and most of the world’s oil. The countries that abstained – China, Russia, India, Brazil and Germany – have almost four times as many people as those voting for the resolution.

This crime is against the working class at home, too. Who will pay for another aggression at a time when the political stooges of big business are crying poverty and cutting every needed social program? Not the super-rich, who barely pay taxes, but the working class and oppressed, who already are suffering high unemployment, plunging wages and cuts to all vital social services.

We must demand: No intervention in Libya! Libya belongs to the Libyan people, not to the imperialist plunderers. End all U.S. interventions and occupations and bring the troops home! Money for jobs, housing, education and health care, not imperialist war!

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